Data communications systems based on a dispersed client/server architecture have become prevalent over the last decade. The most notable and extensive of these dispersed client/server communications systems is the Internet. The World Wide Web (the “Web”), a series of applications introduced in the early-to-mid 1990's which allow layman Internet users to access information residing on servers at all points of the globe, has caused the volume of Internet data traffic to increase to unprecedented levels. The explosive growth in Internet data traffic, which seems to have outpaced the rate of expansion of the Internet's infrastructure, has produced bottlenecks along many of the Internet's data pathways. These bottlenecks intern cause delays in data flow between users and the servers with which they attempt to communicate.